Hydraulic motors are well known alternatives to electric motors for sources to drive a discrete mechanical device. Generally, these fluid motors receive their energy from an electric engine coupled to a fluid pump that is mated to a fluid transmission that disperses a designated flow of pressurized fluid to these hydraulic motors depending on specified load requirements. The prior art utilizes single engine/pump configurations sized specifically to provide enough fluid energy to a hydraulic motor to achieve that motor's required power output under all situations. Under low power demands the engine/pump capacity may be reduced, or some of the fluid energy shed.
The present invention relates to a system of redistributing and transferring fluid energy that offers extreme flexibility in both the selection of the size of the various engine and pump configurations as well as the various hydraulic driving motors through the use of a novel means for fluid energy distribution integrated into the overall system operation. More particularly, to a differential fluid transmission capable of accepting any number of inputs of fluid at different pressures, different flow rates, and combinations thereof, into any of a series of multiple cylinders having pistons connected to a common crankshaft whose accumulated, consolidated energy is able to be redistributed through specific combinations of any of the multiple cylinders to any of a group of driving hydraulic motors by the selective outputting of fluids having different pressures, different flow rates and combinations thereof.
Henceforth, such a differential fluid transmission would fulfill a long felt need in various industries wherein the final objective is to produce rotational or translational movement such as would be required by the prop of a vessel. This would allow the replacement of the engine/pump combinations or the driving motors without regard for matching of the original equipment provided that the replacement or replacements met or exceeded the original power output. This new invention utilizes and combines known and new technologies in a unique and novel configuration to overcome the aforementioned problems and accomplish this.